Latest / Why You Got Sick: How Emotion Drives Chronic Illness & Healing in Women / #55. You've Decided Your Chronic Illness Will Only Get Worse & That Prediction Is Doing Real Damage To Your Body

Transcript

#55. You've Decided Your Chronic Illness Will Only Get Worse & That Prediction Is Doing Real Damage To Your Body · Why You Got Sick: How Emotion Drives Chronic Illness & Healing in Women

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is a prediction you keep making about your chronic illness that it only gets worse from here.
• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the day you stop making it, is the day your body finally gets a real shot at healing.
• 0:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is why you got sick.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Teclody Francesco, certified mind-body practitioner, and certified holistic life coach.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is for women living with chronic illness, autoimmune disease, IBS, chronic fatigue, PCOS,
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: endometriosis, migraines, fibromyalgia, or persistent symptoms that no one can fully explain.
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Twice a week we look at how emotion drives chronic illness in women.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: One episode goes deeper into the pattern beneath the symptoms.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: The other gives you a quick way to interrupt the cycle.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're done organizing your life around symptoms and flare-ups, this is where that changes.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: This podcast shares mind-body education.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is not medical advice and is designed to complement not replace your medical care.
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's begin.
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, you'll discover why the belief that your only heading downhill is doing real damage to your body, not just your mood.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: What your body actually does when you expect the worst from it.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we'll explore the shift that has you expecting good days ahead instead of waiting for the next thing to go wrong.
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've made a prediction about your body, not about today, about where all of this is headed.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the direction you've landed on is downward.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the most dangerous part is that you don't view it like a belief.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You view it like a fact.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ask yourself where your health will be in a year.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: In five years, and the answer comes quickly and with certainty, it will be worse.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if anyone challenged that, you'd have your reasons to back your views, because to you, it's not pessimism.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's realism.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I understand why.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have years of evidence behind it.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: The symptoms that kept coming back, the diagnosis that arrived with the word chronic attached to it, or life long, or manageable, but never curable.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every time you let yourself hope, your body seemed to prove you wrong.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: You decided it was smarter to expect the decline than to keep getting blindsided by it.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: But look closely at what you've actually done.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: You haven't made an observation.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've made a prediction.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And a prediction is definitive.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Once you've decided how the story ends, part of you stops looking for any version where it ends differently.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So watch how you move through your days from inside that forecast.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: A good stretch shows up and you file it as temporary.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: A glitch in the normal programming before the real thing comes back.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: A new symptom appears and it doesn't land as information.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It lands as confirmation.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: See?
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here it is.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right on schedule.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: You wake up already looking for the next sign that things are slipping because you've told yourself that staying ready for the worst is how you handle it.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the whole time you're relating to your body like something that's broken and failing and continuing to do so.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't think about it like something that could turn a corner.
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: You think about it like something in decline that you're just trying to slow down.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is the pattern.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: The forecast you've made about your diagnosis and what it means for your body.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: The future you've imagined that you keep calling realistic as if it's already been confirmed.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to share part of my own story here.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a part of you, your soul, your heart, whatever you believe in.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: That breaks the moment you're sitting in a doctor's office and you hear the word chronic.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: That this is just how it is now, that the best you can hope for is to manage it.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was in my late 20s when I was told I would have to take a prescription to help me digest every single meal for the rest of my life.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: and internally, my world crumbled.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: The whole picture I had for my future collapsed in that room.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was blindsided, shocked, in complete disbelief that this could be happening to me, because my history had been the exact opposite.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: My body had always been strong.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was the thing that earned me an NCAA Division 1 scholarship.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was highly competitive.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It could do things people would only dream their body could do.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now it was being told it was broken in a way that was permanent.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: But here's the part I want you to hear.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: In that same moment, underneath the shock, there was another voice.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know if it was delusion or something deeper than that.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's said that there is no way on this planet, this is going to be my life.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to find a way out.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't care what it takes or what I have to do, this is not happening to me.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I landed on that pretty quickly.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was my turning point.
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: That refusal right at the start to accept the future I'd just been handed.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now here's where I know a lot of you are different, and I want to be honest about it.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you had that same belief or moment at the beginning that you could change this, that it didn't have to be forever.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then you tried one thing, or another, and a hundred things after that, and nothing shifted the way you needed it to,
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Slowly that belief may be started to slip until one day you realized you weren't holding it anymore.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: If that's you, I understand how you got here.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: When the evidence in front of you keeps saying the same thing, losing that belief makes sense.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I want to tell you what made the difference for me because it matters.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: My shifts were my crow at first, really small, but they came early, and I let them count, and those small winds built momentum.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each one was a tiny piece of proof that the trajectory wasn't fixed, that the story could actually go another way.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you've lost the belief that you can change this, I'm not going to pretend that's unusual because it isn't.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hear it all day every day.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: But losing it is not the same as it being true.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: The forecast in your head is not the only available version of your future to you.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So why does the forecast itself matter?
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why would a prediction about your body actually change what your body does?
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: because of something researchers have studied for decades.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've already heard and know about the placebo effect I am sure.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Someone has given a sugar pill with no medicine in it at all.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: They are told it will help, and their body actually improves.
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Real, measurable improvement from a pill that did nothing.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: The expectation on its own produced a physical result.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is an equal and opposite version of that.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's called the no-sebo effect, and far fewer women have ever heard of it.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: No-sebo is when a negative expectation produces a real negative physical result.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Same mechanism just flipped.
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: In research where people are given something that can't actually harm them, but they are warned it might cause side effects.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: They go on to report those exact same side effects.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: The headaches, the nausea, the fatigue.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not because anything was done to their body, but because they expected it.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: It shows up with pain too.
• 7:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: When people are told a sensation is going to be very painful, they feel more pain than the people who weren't told that.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: The expectation changes what the body actually produces.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sit with what that means.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your body responds to what it expects is coming.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not only to what is happening right now, to what you have told it to expect next.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now bring that back to the prediction you've been carrying.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: The one that says my health is only getting worse, going downhill, this only moves in one direction.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is not a neutral thought sitting in your head.
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is a negative expectation you're carrying every single day, over and over for months, sometimes years.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is a no-sebo you've been running on yourself without ever knowing that is what it was.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the old idea of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Except it's not just about your choices or your behavior.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's physical.
• 8:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You expect the decline and your body starts producing evidence to match.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then you see that evidence and it confirms the forecast.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the forecast becomes more permanent, more like a fixed truth, and your body reacts in a way that continues to match that.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is the loop.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: a prediction about your body and the real physical impact it has feeding each other.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the why.
• 8:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is why we care about this because the future you keep calling realistic is not something your body is passively receiving.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's an instruction it has been carrying out.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So here's what we're going to do about it and it's not a mindset trick and it's not forcing you to think positive.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to separate what's actually true about your body from what you've predicted about it.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because right now those two things are fused together and you've been treating the whole thing as a fact.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Grab a piece of paper and draw a line straight down the middle.
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the left side, you're going to right only what is true and confirmed about your body right now today.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not last month, not at your worst, not what you're worried about.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is actually real in this moment?
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's I have pain in my lower back today.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's my energy as low and I feel fatigued today.
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's my loss set of labs showed this specific marker was high.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Real things, confirmed things, things happening right now.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And here's the rule for the left side.
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you can't point to it as something that is actually true today, it doesn't go there.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then on the right side, you write everything else.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every imaginary prediction.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is going to keep getting worse.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: My body is failing.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: In five years, I won't be able to work.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's all downhill from here.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: All of that goes on the right.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now look at what you've done, because for most women, the left side is shorter than they expected, and the right side is where almost all the weight has been sitting.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: All the fear, all the heaviness, all the dread you've been carrying around in your body every day.
• 10:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And here's the thing I really need you to see.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everything on the right side is not happening.
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not one bit of it is true right now.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a prediction.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It has an occurred and it may never occur.
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is a story about a future that does not exist.
• 10:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you've been living as though it already does.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: The left side is your actual body.
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: The right side is the no-sebo you've been running on repeat.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the practice is this.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: From now on, when that heavy downhill feeling shows up, you stop and you ask yourself this question.
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is this something that's true right now or is this something I'm predicting?
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Left side or right side?
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when you patch that it's the right side, which it almost always will be, you name it for exactly what it is.
• 11:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: This has not happened.
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is imagined, not a fact.
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not pretending the hard stuff isn't real.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: The left side is real, and you deal with what's actually there.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're just refusing to keep feeding your body a story about a future that hasn't happened.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: That isn't true.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: The practice it just gave you works.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It will pull you off the right side and back to what's true in the moment every time you use it.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you're anything like the women I work with, that forecast doesn't just come to life in the moment.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's where you live most of the time.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the three AM thought that lands cold in your chest that this is just how life is now.
• 11:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the narrative that informs every decision you make and how you show up every day.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: That practice catches the thought.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: My seven-day audio series changes the woman who's having it.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's called becoming the version of you who heals.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's one short episode and one small practice every day for seven days that helps you interrupt this story at the identity level.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of catching one prediction at a time, it shifts how you think, how you act, and how you relate to your body and your illness.
• 12:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the downhill story stops being your default and starts to feel like a memory.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: You start to believe something can actually be different,
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the version of you who heals.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't live in that forecast anymore.
• 12:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The link is in the show notes, go and read more about it.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dozens of women have seen real change in just one week.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: This week could be the week that things finally start to feel different for you.
• 12:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's recap what we talked about today.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's only gonna get worse, isn't a fact.
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a prediction you've been treating as an objective truth.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: 2.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your body responds to what it expects is coming, and negative for cost becomes a real physical instruction.
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And 3.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: The story that it only gets worse hasn't been protecting you from being let down.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's been part of what causes it.
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's all for today.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Remember that link is in the show notes for you.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you later in the week for our mini episode.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Goodbye for now.